TORONTO, April 24, 2012 - Randy Starkman never took a
shortcut in a life that ended far, far too soon.

As the dean of Canadian amateur
sports journalists, as a loving husband and father, as someone who made a
difference in the lives of young people, and as a friend, Randy tackled it all
with his heart and soul.

That passion touched people from so many different
walks of life, as evidenced by the overwhelming number of tributes that have
been published in newspapers, on television and radio, and in blogs from current
and former Olympic athletes since the Toronto Star sportswriter died suddenly
at the age of 51 on April 16.

“The outpouring of grief from
the Canadian sport community has made it abundantly clear just how loved and
respected Randy was,’’ wrote Olympic kayaker Adam Van Koeverden the day of
Randy’s death after a brief battle with pneumonia. “The media is sometimes seen
as an adversary from the perspective of an athlete, but not with Randy. He
didn’t just interview us, he talked with us. . . . You see, Randy lived by the
same motto as the rest of us. The Olympics isn’t every four years, it’s every
single day. He just got it.’’

In a city where Olympic sports
usually take a place at the rear of the sports section behind the Maple Leafs,
Blue Jays, Raptors, Argonauts and the major North American professional sports
leagues, Randy’s excellence gave his beat prominence on A1 and the Sports
front. Twice he won National Newspaper Awards for outstanding sports
journalism, the first for Ben Johnson’s second steroid scandal, and another one
a year later for a story exposing the inadequacies of a popular hockey helmet.
The NNAs, which traditionally overlook the best sports journalists in the
country in rewarding excellence in sports writing, got it right here. When the
Olympics returned to Canadian soil in 2010 for the Winter Games in Vancouver,
Randy’s coverage leading up to and including the Games far outpaced the
competition. His overwhelming dominance of his beat made him an easy choice to
receive the George Gross Award as Sports Media Canada’s sportswriter of
the year in 2010.

Randy’s career started in 1980
when he left journalism school at Ryerson to accept a full-time job with United
Press Canada. He was hired by the Star after the 1988 Seoul Olympics. While
higher-profile beats were offered to him over the last 25 years, Randy always
chose to continue covering amateur athletes and the Olympics. He found the best
stories to tell about the athletes he covered and he did that by establishing
relationships of mutual respect and friendship with many athletes and sports
officials. Those friendships never got in the way of Randy telling the truth,
but they allowed him to find so many nuggets of information and anecdotes to
share with his readers – information and anecdotes that his competitors never
saw until they picked up the Star sports section.

“He sought out that something
special in athletes,’’ said Olympic cycling and speed skating star Clara
Hughes. “Not only did he have the ability to articulate the insights, he
often made us realize who we were by his perspectives. He would send me
transcripts from interviews he felt offered more than the final edited cuts
allowed in the Star because he thought I would find inspiration in a certain
athlete.

“He’d be so excited to share
and athlete he considered ‘the real thing’.

“He made us understand we were
more than our success. That we should strive for more than just being
good at what we do. He celebrated the victories and supported through the
rough patches.’’

Although he was a man with a
heart of gold who didn’t operate on the belief that reporters and athletes
would interact almost exclusively in scrums and mixed zones, Randy was a tough,
highly principled reporter who could be unrelenting if he didn’t get the
information he was seeking.

I’ll always remember sitting in a taxi near
the Philadelphia airport during my tenure as media relations manager with the
National Hockey League Players’ Association in the mid-1990s. I had informed my
then-boss, NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow, that he would be getting a
phone call from Randy for a story about helmets. Goodenow didn’t care much for
Randy’s questions about why the NHLPA wasn’t more involved in player safety and
cut him off fairly quickly into the interview. While Goodenow berated me for
allowing him to be “set up”, I thought “Actually, Bob, that’s just my friend
doing the job the way it’s meant to be done”.

For all of his excellence as a
journalist, Randy’s prowess as a human being far outshone his professional
life. His marriage to fellow journalist Mary Hynes, whom he met during his
United Press Canada time, was a partnership of two soulmates who were at their
best in each other’s company. That love affair resulted in a daughter, Ella,
who was Randy’s pride and joy and will carry on her dad’s love for a bad joke,
doing good deeds and coming up with new breakfast recipes.

When Randy wasn’t being a
loving husband, doting dad and committed journalist, he poured his remaining
energy into being a Big Brother, giving many hours to the Dovercourt Boys and
Girls Club, contributing to breakfast clubs for neighbourhood schoolchildren.
This past Christmas, Randy lent his support to Mary Spencer, helping the London
Olympics-bound boxer with a toy drive for underprivileged families in Windsor.

In true Randy Starkman fashion,
when he received $10,000 as the recipient of the Dr. Tom Pashby Sports Safety
Award in 2008, the cheque was immediately turned over to the Dovercourt Boys
and Girls Club.

Randy accomplished all of this
despite dealing with depression for most of his life. He battled the disease
with the same ferocity as he tackled the toughest story, and was a source of
inspiration for others affected by depression and mental illness.

While he would have been embarrassed and a little annoyed by the
outpouring of love and tributes in the days following his death, the accolades
delivered from people representing so many communities paid homage to a man who
lived life to its fullest.